My Dream to Be Free

by Juergen Stollin

  The Indian porters dragged the crate from there.

  After all there were at least two kilometers of no man's land from one passport office to the other, which the porters shared.

  It was an achievement in the heat and it was rewarded with two rupees. Chitra and Nancy had no problem with the heat but we poor central Europeans suffered. Especially my little daughter who was so brave so far, did not give me the impression of being happy.

  But the women said that she was fine. On the Indian side, a delicate little man wearing a huge turban on his head was waiting for us, with the words: Welcome to the world's largest democracy!

  And he wanted to have our passports.

  Chitra gave him all our documents; he walked into an office and told us to follow him.

  But now he wagged our German passports around in the air and asked us why we did not have entry visas. I told him that we did not need them.

  Then this Indian, who was so nice in the beginning, threw the passports to me in front of my feet. If we did not have visas, we were not supposed to enter the country.

  Without visa no entry.

  Our statements and petitions also did not help, we should go back to Islamabad and get our visas.

  Attempting to show him a few dollars, which he could keep for himself, made him all the more angry and he threatened to put me in jail for bribing an official.

  I was determined not go there.

  He said that he was an Indian officer and the domination of the whites was already over for more than thirty years.

  He told me to keep that in mind for the future that Indians are a proud people, and especially a Sikh, as he was, was incorruptible. I tried quite humbly ask for forgiveness and said that my wife was also almost an Indian and the baby and the old woman could not help it that I was such an ignorant European. He liked my cringing and he allowed the two women to go with the child to travel to Amritsar to wait for us there.

  The Indian border officer, Mr. Singh, gave us back the German passports, which a "Boy" had picked up off the floor and expelled us from the country.

  I saw how Chitra, her mother and my daughter got into a taxi, Maruscha now without a passport or a child's identity card, because we had her to get a visa. We agreed that we would meet in Amritsar in the "Grand Hotel" again.

  Dieter and I made an about-turn this time without luggage and made the trip back to Islamabad. Of course we did not get visas from the Embassy of India - because Germans do not need visas.

  But I did not give up and got a letter signed and stamped by the Ambassador personally so that I could hand over this document to my brave Mr. Singh

  After four days we were back at the Indo-Pakistan border without visas but with a document.

  From a distance the small border officer came to meet us wearing his big turban and this time an apology came from his lips immediately. He regretted for having sent us away; just one day later he had got a message from his ministry that Germans did not need any visa for entering into India.

  Nevertheless, I showed him the letter from Islamabad, after which we had to drink tea with him and we were given the most accurate entry stamps for 90 days stay in India.

  As we were leaving, Mr. Singh assured us once again that we had become friends and I should not be angry with him any more - and I promised it would be so. We met the two women with the child in Amritsar in top form. They had been enjoying themselves, as I saw from the bill.

  We were sitting in a train to Delhi on the next day. Travelling by train in India is always an adventure but the distance was not so far. By evening we were in Delhi and found a clean hotel at Connaught Place.

  The journey ended here for Dieter.

  He wanted to go back home.

  We bought the ticket and I gave him a little pocket money for traveling. Then we said goodbye.

  I did not want to stay in Delhi for a long time, so I bought the train tickets, of course, always for the best and most comfortable trains possible. It was to become exhausting all the time. The journey would take us across India.

  From Delhi to Bombay and Madras, on to Pondicherry to the ferry to Jaffna in Ceylon. The train had a nice name "Taj Express", it was air-conditioned and had an excellent service.

  We drove from Delhi in the evening and we were already in Bombay the next morning.

  Of course we were too early at the station and had to wait for our train. What I saw at the so crowded railway station here, was one thing that would please any green politician: the perfect recycling. There was an Indian woman with her toddler that absolutely had to go to the potty. But where to go in this hustle and bustle, because the toilets were so far away and whether they were available or functioning at all? So the mom took her offspring to a roof prop, squatted with the bawling kid and the little one did his business.

  A disheveled, skinny dog, who was on the spot noticed this in turn and immediately hungrily devoured the porridge-like turd left by the child.

  The dog did not bother to run away but made a pile of poop near the aforementioned roof support.

  It would all have not been worth mentioning, if not for a black pig had separated from his herd and was looking for something to eat on the edge of the platform.

  He trotted to the dog's turd and ate it with a big grunt.

  You can only say that it was perfect recycling.

  And the human is the end of this food chain. Our night express came and we found our compartment with the help of porters. The train pulled out of the station and the waiter - as I would like to call him - came immediately. We gave our order. The food was very well prepared, provided that you like or can eat spicy food. But the fact that the environment was protected was yet another plus, while eating, because the food was served on banana leaves and the sauces and tea came in small clay bowls that were discarded after use. I liked the disposable tableware without our popular plastic.

  We did not need knives and forks since everything was eaten cut into small pieces in India or you could take the chunks with your hand. You make small balls with the rice and the sauce in the hollow of your hand, which you then push into your mouth with your fingers.

  This is a way of eating, when you can be sure that you do not burn your mouth, but you could burn your throat since there is plenty of chilli peppers used for each meal.

  This chilli-hotness replaces the heat of the stove. It becomes clear in English because the word "hot", is not only used for "hot" as in “heat” but also for “chilli-hotness”.

  We all gave my daughter all our yogurt and mangoes, which was available as a dessert.

  In the morning hours, we reached Bombay but before that, we drove about an hour passing the suburbs and the slums.

  First, we passed the small settlements, then the huts made of sheet steel, which were the homes of the poorest of the poor together with the drainage pipes or very simple cardboard boxes.

  Everywhere beside the railway embankment, there were people squatting with a bottle of water or a pitcher with the spout in one hand, and holding on to their Sarong with the other hand, and were performing their morning ablutions.

  Hundreds of them were sitting at the embankment and were shitting.

  Once there was a sports reporter in Germany who made the embarrassing announcement on the microphone while skiing that thousands stood on the slopes and were pissing and earned much ridicule. A travel reporter would say now ... hundreds of people were sitting at the dam and were shitting!!

  I knew India only as a sailor, who could always go back to his ship and who also went back to Europe or home. It would be not be for me to live here in this overpopulated country forever.

  I hoped that life in Ceylon would not be quite so pathetic.

  The railway station in Bombay was architecturally a beautiful building but here all hell broke loose. A crowd, which reminded me of an anthill, and we were in the middle of it. Since we had to wait for the train to Madras, we had made ourselves comfortable directly on the platform, like the
Indians. We sat on our huge box and waited. Due to the weight and volume, we could not take the case anywhere, so we stayed here on the platform. Beggars were around us always and at any time. I got used to it already being asked constantly for baksheesh. A white man just has to have a lot of money and can always give it, at least the beggars probably thought so.

  Leprosy is also just a disease

  Suddenly I was nudged slightly from behind.

  I turned around and saw an oozing pus-infected stump of an arm before me.

  Sahib - baksheesh, I heard; an ice-cold shudder ran down my spine.

  The man infected with leprosy had actually nudged me with his stump. I gave him his baksheesh, took off my shirt immediately and threw it behind him. He picked it up and was delighted.

  Poor devil, I thought. But there were so many of them.

  If you give something, you will not get rid of them and if you don't give them anything and remain stubborn, you feel uncomfortable. It's like in the church when the collection plate or the basket is passed around and you do not drop something in it. You think that you are being observed. I rummaged around and got another shirt for myself from our luggage, which caused a stir. I do not know if the reason was the sight of the contents of the box or the half-naked white man.

  Thankfully our train arrived and the porters, who were waiting for this moment, hastened and moved our box into our compartment.

  The trip to Madras began.

  The route across the Indian continent was the most interesting part of our trip - jungles, huge forests of coconut trees, then again totally bare rocks. India probably has the largest rail network in the world and most people who travel by train. Everywhere and anytime I looked out the window, people could be seen even in the densest jungle as they walked beside the railway embankment somewhere.

  Couldn’t the Indians stop producing children, so they were able to feed them properly? This was probably because there was no electricity in the villages and thus there was no television either.

  So the early darkness was to blame, that the only pleasure they had was to fuck, it requires no light or television for it. If you wanted to help India, you should not send any tractors to assist in development. This was because, as everywhere in these countries, there were also no spare parts or they did not have any money to buy them. So even today the tractors are gutted; two of them become one, till the last one is also broken.

  You have to equip each cottage with a television. People would watch TV, go to sleep and there would be no babies any more.

  Great reduction in birth-rates!

  Maybe I had my confused thoughts only due to the fact that I had become tired after traveling by train. I just wanted to go to Colombo!

  I had always thought that the Palk Strait is in the Gulf of Manar, which should lead over a 23-km long bridge - the Adam's Bridge, so you could drive over it. I was very disappointed that this bridge did not exist. So we had to travel from Madras to Pondicherry and then on a ferry. It was only a short trip. To go by ferry to Jaffna was very pleasant in the calm sea, since there not many passengers there.

  On the train trip to Colombo, Chitra and her mother began to bloom properly.

  They had taken out their best clothes from the monster box and had put them on.

  The little one had been spruced up and looked like a princess, not like a lousy street child of homeless parents any more. The journey from Jaffna to Colombo passed off very quickly. Chitra entertained the entire train, not only our compartment - after all she was somebody now! She lived in Germany, married to a German there and this German child is hers, and even a Mercedes was already waiting in Colombo.

  I was very glad to arrive at my destination.

  We had been traveling for three months and had survived a few surprises. We first arrived at the home of an uncle of Chitra. We picked up the Mercedes from the port of entry and to my surprise, there was nothing missing and there were also no new scratches on it. After a few days, we found a small villa in Cinnamon Garden, a better neighborhood, which a doctor rented to us for $ 250.

  Slowly we came to a regulated rhythm. Now I had to look only for an employment. At first I did not think about work at all since I would not find it.

  If you already emigrated and that too to such a poor country, you should not believe that you could steal a job from a local person. There was no work available for a white man! There had to be a business, perhaps a small guest-house or a restaurant.

  My leprechaun on my left shoulder had not reported for a long time but he began now to whisper into my ear but I did not listen to him.

  We had brought the car at the request of the uncle but now he did not want to have it any more since he had bought a Japanese car.

  That meant I could offer the car for sale elsewhere. Basically, that was the only way to make money. Many wanted to buy it but the most of them did not have enough money available. So we forgot about selling it initially and enjoyed the luxury of a Mercedes in Ceylon.

  There were not many such cars and that's why it was a status symbol, which earned us a certain respect. We belonged to the upper class and had to be correct in every detail. My neighbors made me realize that I should not drive; besides, I had to get myself a boy who was to open the garden gate and the garage when I came back from a trip. I employed the garage door opener, a boy from a poor family, whom Chitra brought. But I did not want to have a Ceylonese driver. We had not had an accident during the whole trip that we had, except for a few scratches, and now should I give my car to a local man who was accustomed only to driving on the left-hand side? It was impossible that he would understand that the steering wheel was on the wrong side. I had already got used to it that I had to be very careful in the narrow streets while overtaking. Housemaids or a nanny for the child, as they said here, were okay. Even the garage boy was okay. But not a driver! I was able to convince my neighbors. However, I was not allowed to wash my car myself - I had to promise them.

  Had we arrived in paradise?

  And so Chitra had a maid who had her own room, along with the boy. And we had our peace in front of our snobbish neighbors. That was probably a remnant of the British times.

  Our maid's name was Chila and was a 200-percent Buddhist, which I noticed too late. It began with her being at loggerheads with the Flit spray, with which we gave the mosquitoes the death blow and she never used it. Thus, it was my job to destroy the evildoers.

  It was not really a problem, you cannot force anyone to kill, even if there were only mosquitoes.

  But I became somewhat more annoyed when my scrambled eggs did not arrive at breakfast, but a tear-stained Chila.

  Chitra translated to me that as a Buddhist, she was not allowed to kill, which was well known to me. But what had that to do with my scrambled eggs, I asked her and the answer was that if she opened an egg, a life would be destroyed. I could not believe it. This was because no life would come from the egg unless it was under a hen for brooding. I could not explain that a non-incubated egg did not have life, with the help of Chitra as an interpreter. As evidence, I placed an egg on the kitchen cabinet and after two weeks I opened it and showed Chila the black, smelly interior. But I could not convince her and I told her that even flowers, grass, Zuccinis, tomatoes and cauliflower had life.

  When I asked her why she was allowed to kill them, she wailed loudly and said that she would not eat any more if she had to kill so many things because of that.

  In fact, she stopped eating. This went on well for three days but then she came with a dead fish, fried it and ate it.

  Only after she had polished off the fish, I asked her what that was and that she had just eaten a living thing. The answer was very simple and easy: The fish was dead, she had not killed it. It would have been different if the animals were killed by her own hand.

  You just have to believe it.

  Even back home, there was a choice between vegetarians, vegans and those to whom it was not clear at all as to why certain Asians, e
specially Indians did not have any animal products at home, let alone eat them.

  Later I replaced Chila with a Christian and I did not have mosquitoes any more and also scrambled eggs even with bacon arrived at my breakfast table.

  Religion is a bit strange, and it has its strange ways sometimes. The Buddhists usually do not eat anything at all which is from an animal. The Muslims do not eat pork and no marine animals with smooth skin, such as lobster and shrimp, just scaly fish and also not certain hoofed animals, only those with cleft hooves. Hindus do not eat any beef; even leather belt or leather shoes are taboo. The Jew is not permitted to eat from the rump of an animal and has to prepare his sauces without cream. It is of course a squabbling with these religions.

  The Christian is somewhat more flexible, he is omnivorous. If he can just stop eating meat on Fridays, the great Master is satisfied. If you then still consider that there are sub-sections in religions, then you only have one question: Who has the correct faith now? I have had this question often and come to the conclusion that faith does not match knowledge. People who do not know anything, do not want to admit that they are stupid and fight against it by being fanatics.

  And fanatics have only one point of view - they are not in the position to look to the right or the left, they consider only their standpoint or their opinion. This makes them so dangerous.

  Here the magic word ‘tolerance’ would be at the right place. A tolerant person cannot be a fanatic.

  And fanatics cannot be tolerant.

  Life already has its quirks. And we too encountered these quirks, in other words, complications, since when we had a buyer for the car, we realized that it was impossible to sell it. The "Carnet de Passage" or "triptych", was issued to the name of Chitra. But since she was Ceylonese, it was not possible, due to reasons of customs requirements! The car would have to be re-exported and re-written in the name of a non-Ceylonese. Only then it could be officially imported. Because we were already at the customs office, we also immediately got the message: The vehicle would have to be out of the country within a month, otherwise it would be confiscated by the customs. It was already over the time limit of the customs guarantee of the German Automobile Club (ADAC).